PSY 200: Introduction to Cognitive Psychology

Fall 2020
On-line

Breaking news

• August 24: One of the TAs has sent an email to each student with CogLab information. If you did not get that email, please check your spam folder/filter. If the email is not there, then email harreola@purdue.edu.
• August 24: There was an error in the dates listed in the syllabus starting around October 5. The syllabus has been corrected, below.
• August 25: I changed the link to the WebEx meeting for office hours, below. If you previously could not get it work perhaps it will work now.
• August 26: Most students completed the first CogLab assignment on Brain Asymmetry, but there is a large minority who did not (yet) get it done. I will give people until Friday (11:00 am) to complete that assignment for credit. You can do it later, but you will not get course credit for it.
• August 28: Some students reported being unable to hear parts of Lecture 3. The sound is fine on my computer, but I uploaded an alternate lecture.
• September 07: Do not forget that the first writing assignment is due _today_ at 1:30 pm. Upload it at Brightspace. Should you have trouble with the upload, email a copy to one of the TAs. 
• October 18: A student pointed out that the due dates listed in the assignment documents for writing assignments 3 and 4 were incorrect. I updated those files with the correct dates. In particular, writing assignment number 3 is due Wednesday, October 21.
  Also, our first exam is one week away. This week you should access the practice exam on Brightspace. The first exam will be in a similar format, and it is a good idea to get practice with the presentation details. It is also a good way to test your preparation for exam 1. 
• September 10: Some students reported being unable to hear parts of the video for Review 1. The sound is fine on my computer, but I uploaded an alternate video.
• September 11: Do not forget that PSY 200, Introduction to Cognitive Psychology has Exam 1 on Monday, September 14. The exam will take place on Brightspace. It will be available for a 24 hour period starting at 1:30 pm on Monday and closing at 1:30 pm on Tuesday, September 15. 
  You will get 50 minutes to complete the exam, and you must finish it in one setting (no re-takes or partial takes allowed). [Students with DRC accommodations get extra time.] Should you not finish within 50 minutes of starting the exam, Brightspace will submit whatever answers you have provided up to that time. 
  To familiarize yourself with Brightspace, you should log in and go through the Practice Exam 1. This practice exam does not count for a grade, and you can re-take it as many times as you like.
    Exam 1 is open book and open notes, but you should not work with anyone on the exam. Do not share information about the exam with anyone except Dr. Francis and the TAs. Although you have access to your notes, you should know the material well enough that you do not need those notes. There are 50 questions on the exam, so if you spend time going through your notes to answer questions, you will run out of time. 
  If you have problems or questions, please contact Dr. Francis or the TAs as soon as possible. We may be able to help. However, we cannot guarantee a quick response, especially if you email us overnight. 
  Do not wait until the last minute to start the exam. If you start the exam at 1:00 pm on Tuesday you will (I think) only get 30 minutes for the exam, since it closes at 1:30 pm. 
  My advice is for you to take the exam during the regular class time on Monday. Dr. Francis will have office hours during that time, so a quick response to any questions is likely. 
  Good luck!
• September 21: The CogLab site seems to be a bit sluggish. For me, it usually resolves itself in a few minutes. Given these problems, I will let everyone finish today's CogLab assignment by 5:00 pm today. The other assignments will be due at the regularly scheduled time, so be sure to give yourself time to get the lab done in case there continues to be a slowdown.
• September 30: I have compiled the first exam, the first writing assignment, and CogLab assignments together to give an idea of how you are doing in the class. You can download a PDF copy . Here, each row is for a student, who is identified by their assigned CogLab ID. The estimated class grade is computed by supposing that the score you got on the first exam is what you get on all other exams (and likewise for the writing assignment and CogLab average). Overall, grades are pretty good. However, there is one student who has not signed up at CogLab (and thus currently has a score of zero). Several students did not hand in the first writing assignment, and two students did not take exam 1.
• October 19: I have compiled the first two exams, the first two writing assignments, and CogLab assignments together to give an idea of how you are doing in the class. You can download a PDF copy . Here, each row is for a student, who is identified by their assigned CogLab ID. The estimated class grade is computed by supposing that the score you got on the first two exams is what you get on all remaining exams (and likewise for the writing assignment and CogLab average). Overall, grades are still pretty good. However, there is still one student who has not signed up at CogLab (and thus currently has a score of zero). Some students are not completing CogLab assignments, and several students did not complete the second writing assignment. You need to stay on top of the class work. I noticed that only about one third of the class had taken the practice exam 2 on Brightspace. I think that is a missed opportunity to prepare for the exam.
• November 08: I have pulled together all grades as of today (first three writing assignments, first three exams, CogLabs) to give an idea of how you are doing in the class. You can download a PDF copy . Here, each row is for a student, who is identified by their assigned CogLab ID. The estimated class grade is computed by supposing that the score you got on the first three exams is what you get on all remaining exams (and likewise for the writing assignment and CogLab average). Overall, grades are pretty consistent with previous semesters. Relative to previous students, some students are not completing CogLab assignments on time, which is hurting their class grade.
• November 08: Sorry, but I made a mistake in calculating the CogLab grade. I mistakenly included a lab that is not yet due. The grade sheet has been corrected.
• November 11: Our final exam is scheduled for Wednesday, December 9, 9:00 am to Thursday, December 10, 9:00 am. As for other exams, you must take it in one time period; but you have 2 hours to take the exam.
• December 08: I have pulled together all grades as of today (everything but the final exam) to give an idea of how you are doing in the class. You can download a PDF copy . Here, each row is for a student, who is identified by their assigned CogLab ID. The estimated class grade is computed by supposing that the score you got on the first four exams is what you get on the final exam. Scores on exam 4 were quite good, which bodes well for the final.
• December 13: Grades on the final exam were pretty good, and so is the class grade (on average). You can download a PDF copy of the final class grades. Here, each row is for a student, who is identified by their assigned CogLab ID.

Instructor:

Name	Office	Email	Phone	Virtual office hours
Greg Francis	PSYCH 3186	gfrancis@purdue.edu	494-6934	MWF 1:30 - 2:20 pm

Please contact me (email is best) if you cannot visit during office hours to schedule an alternative time to (virtually) meet.

Text: There is no textbook. Material for exams will be taken from the lectures. If you want to use a textbook, you can use any cognition text from other (present and past) sections of this course, or you can purchase a textbook online. Class notes will be available on the web (see below). The notes are reduced in size so that six slides fit on a single page. You can either download individual lectures (below) or you can download the entire set of lectures notes in a single file (51 MB). There are also optional readings in the schedule below. These readings may help if you are unsure about something or want to explore a topic further.

Office hours: Virtual office hours will be held 1:30-2:20 pm (US Eastern time) via WebEx. If WebEx asks for a meeting ID, use: gfrancis.

Class home page: The home page for this course is http://www.psych.purdue.edu/~gfrancis/Classes/PSY200/indexF20.html From this page you can download lecture notes, view the class schedule, view current grades, and connect to the various homework laboratory and writing assignments.

Lecture videos: BoilerCast recordings of the lectures from previous semesters are available, below. For a few BoilerCast recordings, the audio was poor or the lecture content has changed, so a new recording has been created. Sometimes the recording is cut off prematurely, in most cases this does not hurt the content of the lecture (just miss the conclusions or next time slides). In a few cases, the content starts in the next lecture, and I tried to cut and past to put everything together in one file.

Examinations: There will be four section exams and one final exam. The section exams will be on the day indicated in the class schedule, below, and the final exam will be given during the final exam period (do not plan for an early vaction, this course's final exam is sometimes scheduled for the last day of exam week). The first exam is worth 10% of your class grade. The last three exams and the final are each worth 15% of your class grade. The final will cover all topics of the course. Exams will be all multiple choice questions. Extensive study guides are available as links in the class schedule below. Tentatively, exams will be run through BrightSpace, and will be available for 24 hours starting at 1:30 pm US Eastern time on the date indicated below in the schedule. Practice exams are available as a pdf and will also be available on Brightspace. However, the course always changes a bit from semester to semester, and your exams will be made of different (but similar) questions.

CogLab: CogLab is an Internet site that allows students to participate in classic experiments related to cognitive psychology. You will be given lab assignments throughout the semester. These labs are run through the Internet and can be carried out at any computer lab on campus or at a home computer. Your overall lab grade will make up 15% of your class grade. All the labs are on the Cognitive Psychology Online Laboratory (CogLab) web page at https://coglab.cengage.com. In the schedule below, individual labs are associated with different dates. You must complete each lab by 11:00 am on the date indicated to get credit (better to do it the night before). CogLab set up instructions and a registration code will be emailed to you at the start of the semester.

Writing assignments: Four times during the semester (the precise dates are listed in the schedule below), you must submit a short (1500 - 2000 words) report related to CogLab assignments or other topics discussed in class. The details of each assignment are provided in the linked documents in the schedule, below. Each report must be typed, single space, and follow the format indicated in the linked document. The report should be free of grammar and spelling errors, and it must address all the topics indicated in the instructions. Each report will be scored on a 10 point scale. The average report score for each student across the semester will make up 15% of your class grade. Reports must by prepared in a word processing program (Microsoft Word or something similar) and be submitted through Brightspace by 1:30 pm on the date indicated in the schedule, below. Late submissions receive a score of 0. Plagiarism (using someone else's writing as your own) will not be tolerated. Do not simply copy and paste material from any source. For short reports like this assignment, you should not be quoting text from any source, even with proper attribution. See the Purdue Online Writing Lab for details about plagiarism. If deemed serious enough, plagiarism will be reported to the Dean of Students. You may find some on-line sites to be useful for checking grammar, such as Grammarly and SlickWrite

Grading: Grading is on a straight scale, as described in Lecture 1. There is no rounding or curving of grades. There is no possibility of extra credit.

Teaching Assistants:

Name	Email	Office hours
Hailey Arreola	harreola@purdue.edu	Monday 11 am-noon (WebEx, Meeting number: 120 722 0020, Meeting password: Mon2020 ), Wednesday, 10 am -noon (WebEx, Meeting number: 120 013 3967, Meeting password: Wed2020 )
Amanda (Andi) Fordyce	afordyc@purdue.edu	Tuesday, 9 am - 12 pm (WebEx), If necessary, use the ID: afordyc.

Schedule:

The links to the optional readings provide some additional background or related information. You do not need to read this material, but if you are interested in the topic, it is a place to start further exploration.